We have enjoyed our stay here so much that we first postponed our departure by 2 days, by skipping a planned routing via Marrakech, then further postponing another 2 days by skipping a stay in Rabat.
Essaouira is also known as the windy city, and so the kitesurfing has been really good.
There has only been one or two days with difficult or weak winds, and those days we've either rented surfboards or kayaks.
The one day with just surfboards, the waves were quite small, so I ended up paddling around helping windsurfers and kitesurfers who had crashed and lost their board and such.
I also got to try my talents as "life-guard" when one french windsurfer did a huge jump but ended up crashlanding wrong side down and busting his knee. I didn't see the fall, but I heard a scream of pain, and shouted to him asking if he was allright, he was shaking his head both hands clutching his submerged knee. I quickly paddled my longboard over to him and grabbed on to one of his arms pulling him halfway up on the board.
Up until then, the waves had been tiny, but all of a sudden here comes 2 or 3 quite big ones completely disrupting my rescue attempt. I lost my grip on both him and the board and we went tumbling inside the wave. When I came up again for air, I accidentally nudged the surfboard in his direction, it went full speed towards his head and hit him right in the face as he also had just recovered from the big wave and was looking in another direction..
Some life-guard I was..
Anyway we got to shore and he was helped further from there. I met him and his girlfriend a few days later and he was on crutches, he was still thankful even though I torpedoed him with my board.
Besides doing all kinds of watersports we have browsed the markets in the local medina, eaten good food and tried both Hammam and massage.
The Hammam we tried were in the cellar of our hotel, I've never tried it before, Jim has, and we both agreed this guy was crap. We went to a 5 star hotel and spa instead and the treatment and quality there were sublime.
When we first came to Essaouira we had intended it to be the place where we really were gonna enjoy ourselves and also stay at the best hotel we could find, which didn't mean much since most had been very reasonably priced earlier along our route, and also not very fancy.
Well, as we drove into the city we saw a big sign saying Atlas Hotel 5 stars, and we both pointed to each other nodding and grinning.
Fast forward to the incredible looking lobby and reception desk where the nice looking non-bhurka wearing lady has just told us the price of a room. Jim looks doubtfull and says: "hmmm well... I... Magnus what do you say...?" and I, without thinking much about it, go:"Allrighty, sign me up for some of this!" Jim looks at me like I am leaking brains out of my nose, and I go: "oh did she say xxxx Dirhams, I thought she said... riight, so only one night then to test it I guess.." Jim is still not believing what is coming out of my mouth, so I go: "...riiight... so maybe we should look around for what other hotels are around.."
Well Jim was right of course, the price was way high, and we still found a nice enough place to stay, and we could spend all the money we saved on kitesurfing rental and good food/drink instead.
Not much else to report at this time, except maybe the removal of our beards. That's right!
Jim was itching and getting annoyed by his face-doo so he cracked first a few days ago. Staying unshaved for the longest amount time was sort of one of our semi-challenges. I also used it for the purpose of scaring away the most weak-hearted hustlers and small animals. Such uses will shortly no longer be needed, and I would still have an untanned skin "beard" if I didn't let some sun get through eventually.
I will probably not let my beard grow as long as this again unless I enlist as a sailor, so being the kid that I am, I decided to shave in a way that would give me the most amount of beard types in one shave. I started off with "huge side-burns", then "the donut", next obviously "the fu-man-chu", "the wife beater", "the cop stache", "the dirt-lip" then all off. It was funny! I'd post pictures, but I don't want to scar any retinas.
On Monday, 7 hours from now, we are starting on our journey home. It sounds like a very short and quick affair when saying "just going home" but the reality of it is one week of travel, 3 nights on a ship to Italy, and 2800km to ride on our bikes. We've prepped our bikes tonight, and we are ready for the first leg up to Tanger, about 700km.
Time to get back on the road for these slackers!
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